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The starting point of this letter is a real detective job. Paul says he has left Titus in Crete but we have no record in Acts of him being in Crete except for the shipwreck on his way to Rome. Then we have no mention of Church planting or of Titus so it is unlikely that this refers to Acts 26.

We do know that Titus was one of Paul’s team. He is mentioned in Gal. 2:3; 2Corinthians 2:13;8:23:12:18. The references in 1 Corinthians show that Titus was a man of tact and leadership so he was well qualified for the task we read of in Titus 1:5

Paul is also clearly  a free man so it seem s reasonable to assume this was a further missionary journey after his release from prison in Rome. He says in the letter to the Romans that he wanted to visit Spain, so maybe he combined a trip to Spain and Crete. Paul’s idea of a Mediterranean cruise was to proclaim Jesus in the Synagogues and any other place where he gained a hearing and planting a church. The early church grew very rapidly because the early Christians invested in telling the Good News from place to place, and ever onwards.

So we know nothing more about the circumstances of the letter. However, there are two similar letters written to Timothy so they are described as the Pastoral Epistles as they are written to assist in developing the early churches that were planted all over the known world.

The letter follows the normal form of the day. You start with who is speaking.  Then follows who it is for  and a formal greeting. Then you plunge into the letter proper. At the end greeting would be added, if not messages from and to others who would be around. Letters would be sent by reliable friends travelling in the right direction or servants sent for that specific purpose. Normally letters were written by scribes, which are often mentioned at the end of the letter. So the letter pans out like this:

1. Address and greeting

From Paul 1:1-4

To Titus     1:4a

Greeting    1:4b

2. Substance of letter:

     a. Appointing Leadership:                  1:5-9

     b. Warnings against false teaching   1:10-16

     c. What must be taught                       2:1-3:7

          What to teach various groups       2:1-10

           A call to godliness                         2:11-15

           Attitude to authorities                     3:1-2

          The appearance and work of Jesus      3:3-7

3. Closing messages                                                3:8-15

    a. Closing encouragements                         3:8-11

    b.  personal messages and final greeting   3:12-15

          Personal messages                       3:12-13

          Final encouragement                     3:14

          Final greeting                                  3:15

 So Paul begins in the usual way with his name and something about himself.

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ

Unique this, calling himself ‘slave of God’. Usually he calls himself ‘slave of Jesus’. Either way it is not the modern idea of title. Slavery is an awful thing and William Wilberforce is famed for pushing a ban on it through parliament. But still the trade in humans goes on. There are probably some slaves in South Ruislip and it needs an observant neighbour to spot the signs and report  their suspicions.  But being a slave of God or Jesus has a very different connotation. For a start it is a voluntary state. You choose to become a slave of Jesus. How?  By being indebted to him because he saves you. He redeems you from the slavery of sin and death. So you freely offer yourself as a living sacrifice to him.

Secondly Paul was an apostle. This word is full of meaning. It was given to the twelve who Jesus called to follow him through his three years of teaching and healing. Paul counted himself an apostle because he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and received a commission to tell the gentiles the good news. Apostle means ‘Sent out’ so is an ambassador, a commissioned messenger. So Paul’s calling to tell the Good News made him an apostle to the gentiles.

 Paul the slave is bound to the orders of Jesus and as apostle has the message of Jesus to tell the world. And that is what we seek to do here week by week, in word and action to tell you that God loves you and that Jesus death and resurrection deal with the sin and death that dominates your life. The church takes on the role of apostle for you.

 But Paul adds

for the faith of God's elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness –

 ² a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, ³ and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Saviour,

Note that this is about faith and knowledge and godliness. It’s not what you do but what you believe, not what you were born as but what you have received. Knowledge is not formal information. It is knowing Jesus, having a friendship with him, living alongside him. It is about having the new life that Jesus offers so that your thinking and behaviour reflects God’s thinking and behaviour.

And it is resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised. Your godliness does not earn your place in God’s family, it is the outcome of a life resting on the hope of eternal life. 

Paul explicitly points out that this hope is not futile, it is based on God’s word and God cannot lie. This anchor of faith is expressed in Romans3:4

Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar.

See also Hebrews 6:18-19.

 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.  We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. 

As Jesus said:

I am the way, the truth and the life.

Jesus is the starting point for finding the truth and the end point as well. Getting to know Jesus is getting to know the truth. So we understand that when Jesus arrived on earth and lived and died and rose again, he was the revelation of truth, knowledge and godliness. He lived a godly life, he taught the truth and he became the solution to our sin so that we could have eternal life.

 ⁴ To Titus, my true son in our common faith:

Or better genuine child in our common faith

We share together a faith in Christ Jesus.

He contrasts Titus as genuine against the false teachers he will refer to later. Paul is not claiming to be a spiritual father of Titus, he is noting that Titus is legitimate child of faith. He has been born again of the Holy Spirit of God.

The greeting summarises the Good News that Titus has received. It is

    Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour.

It is all about what God gives us in Jesus. It is grace meaning that we cannot earn it we receive it as a free gift. It is peace, as Paul writes in Romans 5: 1-2

¹ Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

Let’s be clear, when we talk of peace here we are talking of peace with God, the security of knowing our sins forgiven, that nothing we do or say or think can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. You can have that peace on a restful holiday or in the midst of disaster. If you have received grace then you have peace regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in. 

It is this Good News that is fundamental to our faith and foundational to the church. In Paul’s day the church was growing rapidly and that is why Titus gets this letter. Possibly as a instruction but most probably as an encouragement in the difficulties that he was bound to face as a church leader.

 ⁵ The reason I left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.

Whatever the reason for Paul moving on, there were matters still to be straightened out in Crete. They had not either enough understanding of the Good News nor had they a simple leadership to manage the new churches. So Paul instructs Titus to sort out the teaching and sort out leaders in every town on Crete.

He then plunges straight into a description of what qualities to look for in these leaders.

⁶ An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.

First we need to understand what is meant by ‘elder’. The church grew out of the Jewish community and gentiles joined it. So structurally the churches reflect Jewish culture. Each synagogue had elders who presided over the services. The title ‘elder’ was used of members of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. So it defines someone in leadership of the church. It is not an official job title even though we have used it as such for many years. The Greek word is presbuter which is where the Presbyterians get their name – churches led by presbyters or elders. The Orthodox churches looked at the temple for its structure and so re-invented the priest class which Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist churches still maintain. That is they have a priesthood and a laity and set them apart. We hold to the priesthood of all believers so the leaders are simply that, they do not carry any super-spiritual status.

But clearly there are characteristics which are looked for in our leaders. When we were appointing Lucy and then Oli this and a similar passage in 1Timothy were in our minds.

Lets start with what is not in this list.

There is no mention that they had to be educated to a particular level. There is no requirement that elders had to have served as deacons or assistants or juniors. The hierarchy does not exist. There are no senior pastors, assistant pastors, Archbishops, archdeacons, popes or even vicars. Just men to lead the local church.  Apparently from within the local church. Probably they were working men, certainly they were family men.

In the 21^st Century we do not have to use the vocabulary and structure of the 1^st Century synagogue, but we do need good leaders and we have here what indicates good spiritual leaders.

Stop and look at the list because although we can get tied up with interpreting it too closely it is what we look for in every believer. The problem is that we are fallen, weak, sinners, saved by grace and we come to Jesus for healing, restoration and new life. We carry the baggage of the consequences of our sin, so the church that Titus was appointing leaders for paralleled our own. There are people who come to Christ from adulterous relationships, in Titus’ world polygamy was common, thieves, murderers, liars, conmen and the like. If you know you have messed up your life, you are in good company this morning. We all have and know that even after receiving grace and forgiveness, we have chosen the wrong way so often. This is the community of the forgiven and, should be, forgiving. We are not the pure and blameless people that we desire to be. That is why we come to Jesus, seeking forgiveness of our sins and, in our lives, working out the consequences of going our own way but righteously, following Jesus in seeking to live holy and blameless lives.

But we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness. So key criteria for leaders is that they are heading in the right direction.

⁶ An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.

We name of Jesus Christ is defamed in our society by leaders who have often hidden sins, adultery, greed, lust, and still try to carry on in post. We need to expect our leaders to be blameless, and Paul specifies what he means by blameless in verse 7. So we do DBS checks on all our leaders and pray for them because they are more tempted by Satan than others because their failure makes the headlines and drags the name of Jesus into disrepute.

They are to be in a proper marriage relationship although I don’t see that they may necessarily be married- we marry much older than in the 1^st Century so our leaders may well not have got to that point of being married. However, clearly we do not subscribe to celibacy as a requirement, the implication here is the opposite. Christian leaders are most likely to be married.

They are teaching their children proper behaviour and good news of the faith. This cannot mean the children have to be Christians because no one can make a child a Christian. You are not a Christian by being born in a Christian family. You are a Christian because you have individually put your faith in Jesus and receive grace and peace for yourself. But it is the responsibility of parents to bring up their children ‘in the Lord’ to guide them in not only being nice people but into understanding the love of God, prayer, Bible reading, grace and forgiveness. You see it is what you do in your home that spirituality is best demonstrated. Are you a follower of Jesus when no one is looking? When you are relaxing in front of the TV? On the Internet? Are you leading your own family well because church leaders are to lead God’s local family.

 ⁷ Since an overseer is entrusted with God's work, he must be blameless - not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. ⁸ Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.

Paul is saying to Titus and us, look for Christ-like behaviour. Reject people who are unrepentant and uncontrolled in their behaviour.  They are trusted with God’s work. We are not a product of the hard sweat and tears of our members or of our predecessors even though we owe them a debt of gratitude for their commitment and sacrifice, we are saved by grace. Our Peace comes from the Father as a gift to his children.  That is what South Ruislip Christian Fellowship is, God’s work. We are a work in progress!  So our leaders are givers rather than takers; selfless rather than selfish; Self-controlled rather than out of control.

⁹ He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

Here is the main element. They must hold firmly to the Good News revealed in the Bible. The purpose of leadership is to encourage others by sound teaching and example, to know when wrong thinking is creeping into the fellowship and counter it with love and clarity. That is the substance of the rest of the letter.

So are you ready for leadership? Have you turned from your messed up life and received the forgiveness that Jesus won for you on the cross? Are you seeking to turn your life around and life the Jesus-way in honesty, sorting out relationships and taking command of your desires like anger, lust, greed, selfishness so that they are where God places them? Anger that others are wronged leading to action to aid the victims, sex reserved for a marriage relationship alone, greed limited to providing for  family and aiding those in need. Selfishness to love your neighbour as you love yourself. The challenge for us this morning is to live the life. To quote the Pope:

We can bring the Gospel to others only if it has made a deep impact in our lives.

We can only lead others when we walk hand in hand with our leader Jesus of Nazareth.